For this project, you are to put together an audit plan for the company of eBay. Obtain the latest financial statements for your company and use the most recent fiscal period as what your client would assert to you at the beginning of the audit. For example, if you choose a company with a December 31 fiscal year-end, you would probably use 12/31/18 numbers as a current year starting point. Some of the items you should have in your audit plan include, but are not limited to, the following:
– Documentation of your understanding of the business, company history, the industry it operates in, regulation it is subjected to, etc.
– Documentation of your risk assessments related to the company. This could include risks related to the previous bullet above, risks related to any incentives, fraud, illegal acts, related party transactions, etc, or accounting specific risks related to line items on the company’s financial statements
– Audit programs documenting risk assessments (inherent and control) for the accounting area this pertains to (i.e. revenues, accounts payable, intangible assets, etc), possible control testwork and substantive procedures to be performed, etc.
– At the very least, I would think you’d have audit programs for accounts you deem associated with any significant risks and for accounts comprising major parts of company business
– REQUIRED: Illustrate the role of data analytics in performing these audit procedures
– Preliminary analytical procedures based on current year and prior year financial statements
Some guidelines related to the project:
– This project is to be done based on your current external knowledge of your company. Please do not make reference to discussions with client personnel, detailed documentation of company processes, or other “made-up” information.
– Quantity does not necessarily equal quality. The amount of content will not solely dictate your grade. It is very important that all things included are relevant to your company and not merely pumping up the size of your project.
– As with anything in academics, when in doubt, be as specific as possible. What I mean by that is I expect you to address major areas related to your company beyond material strictly from the textbook. I want you to think about and address things that actually are the significant areas of your client company, potentially above and beyond the standard things that affect all companies (i.e. cash, revenue recognition).
– Please reference sources appropriately as needed.
– A good approach would be to address issues related to your company in conjunction with chapters we cover in the textbook. While I think your project should also address issues not covered in the text, this approach could provide you with a timetable for addressing relevant issues to your company while they are still relatively fresh to you.
– It would not be extraneous for your business understanding and risk assessment portions of your project to each be 10-15+ pages. There are lots of resources out there.
– This should read like passages or a report.